How prepared are you?

I don’t know how to tie a tie.

It’s not that I never learned, but it’s just that I’ve never needed one all that often. When the time would come to need a tie, I would have to reteach myself and would inevitably forget.

Let’s just say that learning the intricacies of tie tying weren’t too high up on my priority list.

That’s beginning to change.

Recently I have been preparing myself for an upcoming career fair. I have been updating my résumé, researching attending companies and developing my “elevator pitch.” I had been pretty confident of my situation up until it came time to select a wardrobe.

All of this because I don’t know how to tie a tie.

Here I was taking all the precautions conceivable, pondering responses to “my biggest weakness,” hyping myself for the challenges ahead, but I couldn’t tie a Windsor knot if my life depended on it. Sure I could look it up, and I typically managed to produce something halfway decent, but this was only a temporary solution.

My predicament seemed comical at first. However, upon further inspection, the significance of the situation resonated with me.

If I can’t even manage to tie a tie, a staple in the repertoire of the idealistic businessman, what other aspects of the workforce was I unprepared for?

Yes, of course the ability to string up a Windsor knot isn’t the most important factor in the grand scheme of things. But I do feel that it poses an important question concerning college students and their preparedness for entering the workforce.

At this point in my life, education is pretty much all I know. It is something I have been involved with for as long as I can remember, with every class leading me to where I am today.

After graduating with my undergraduate degree, I might never enter a classroom setting again. I’m not sure whether to be ecstatic or petrified.  

Many of my friends are adamant in the belief that they are done with schooling. They are ready to graduate and finally put their knowledge to use making some money.

This does seem like an alluring prospect, but I would take it with a grain of salt.

It is evident that graduating, finding a suitable career and even learning how to tie a tie are parts of life and growing up. But that does not necessarily make us prepared to face the challenges posed to us in a business setting.

Before we jump feet first into the job market, it would do us well to ask ourselves: how prepared am I?

­— andsamps@indiana.edu